How to Choose Ski Bindings

Hi! I am Ryan Sasse, I am with Ski Chalet in Arlington, Virginia. Today, we are talking about how to get new set of ski equipment. Right now, we are going to focus on bindings. The bindings are important because that is how the boot attaches to the ski and it's also part of the safety aspect of skiing. Without the binding set correctly, you can certainly either step out off the ski early or may not release, in general, if you do take a spill. If that does occur, then essentially you could do some possible harm to yourself as far as twisting a knee or possibly worst. So, we certainly don't want that to happen. Going through bindings, it's really not too difficult, you can focus on a few factors that come into play with your skiing. You can focus on weight. If you want a lighter weight binding, that way it's easier to maneuver the ski or for an expert level skier, it is something that's, maybe, a little bit better holding the boot and it's going to be a little bit stronger setting for that type of skier who is putting more pressure on the ski. A couple of different options you can certainly go through in more of your basic setup here- light weight binding, easy to install, just a basic step-in system, easy for the skier to use, specially for somebody who is a novice to intermediate skier. From there, you can go into kind of a mid-level binding which does have a little bit better toe piece, which is certainly going to be better for release purposes and then also has a nicer heel piece which does not have a few options as far as stepping in and out of the binding, that's going to be a little bit easier to work with, say, if you take a spill and you don't have the leverage to step into the binding, then you can certainly use this particular toe piece to make it easier to step into. Also, you have got a next step-up which is basically a binding as a little bit of a wider platform which is great for a ski that's a little bit wider under foot and it's going to give you little more leverage. All of these bindings again are very easy to use, they are basic step-in bindings, all you have to do is take the toe to boot, put it in first and then push the heel down, like such. That's going to get you into the ski and then you are set to go. Now that we have talked about bindings, let's get to boots because that's certainly the most important part of the whole package.